


No Other One

by angelheadedhipster



Series: Pinkerton Project [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drugs, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Rain, Sad, songfic sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is lying, thought John. He’s lying and I’m standing beside him, listening to it happen, and doing nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Other One

**Author's Note:**

> I was consciously trying to go for something a little darker with this one, because I don't usually do that and the point of this whole project is challenging ourselves yay! Not totally sure how it turned out, but it was fun to try.
> 
> Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65p6grAGYIM

_Sherlock is lying,_ thought John. _He’s lying and I’m standing beside him, listening to it happen, and doing nothing at all._

“You can see it from his fingernails, he’s been using for years,” Sherlock was saying. Lie, thought John. Sherlock knew the victim had been using drugs for years because Sherlock had been using drugs for years, and he’d met the man at his dealer’s apartment. Sherlock knew that, John knew that, Sherlock knew that John knew that.

Now he was explaining how he could tell the types of trace metals in the victim’s shoes by sight, which was also a lie. Sherlock had broken into the crime scene during the night, when he’d first heard about it on the police scanners, and run off with as many samples as he could get his hands on. John had woken up to him running experiments on them in their kitchen.

So now he was standing next to Sherlock in the rain, listening to him talk bollocks to Lestrade. Lying to the police was new, and not good. But that’s what Sherlock did, and John watched.

Sherlock had come back different. John had been angry at the very first, but soon he was happy, really happy. It was like he’d been given back a present, something that had been taken away, something uniquely his. He had thought he’d lost it, and now that it was back, he would never let him go, never ever.

But Sherlock was someone else now. He’d won, and winning broke something in him. He moved faster and faster now, unable to focus on things, careening past anything in his way. The drugs were back - sometimes, not always. Not addiction, not quite.

The drugs scared John.

John shivered, and Sherlock moved slightly beside him. Not a nod, not quite, but then he said, “This is pointless, Lestrade. I’m right about the mineral samples, have your infernal technicians do the tests if you must. Come, John, we’re going home.” And he whirled off in his coat like he always did, the rain only making the hollows of his cheekbones more pronounced, hair dripping into his eyes.

Lestrade looked at John, who looked back, direct and expressionless.

“He’s not well, John,” said Lestrade.

John said nothing, and walked after Sherlock.

Sherlock pressed up against him in the cab home, cars flashing past them in the rain, casting brief shadows on his face. Sherlock touched him more, now. More than he used to. John didn’t quite know what it meant, but he didn’t mind. Sherlock’s arm was cool where it touched his skin, wet from the rain. He could feel the other man’s pulse, barely, his heart beating too fast. Sherlock was always too fast.

He jumped out of the cab the minute they arrived at Baker Street, swirling into the flat while John was left to pay the driver. By the time John got to the door Sherlock was gone, and he walked slowly up the stairs, not thinking of anything except the water still on his skin.

It seemed like it rained more than it used to, John thought. More than it had before Sherlock jumped.

 _Lestrade was right_ , John thought, kicking his shoes off in the living room. Sherlock was nowhere to be seen - he had gone up to his room immediately. Never a good sign.

There were the drugs, which were bad to start with, but Sherlock was getting worse about them. He had always been as careful with his dosage and his chemicals as he was with anything else, but now he didn’t seem to care. There had been a few mistakes, a few very scary nights. Once John had had to call Molly and have her bring some things from St. Bart’s, things he couldn’t get himself without inviting questions.

“John,” she’d said, her eyes wide, her hands clenched now that they weren’t busy. “If he survives this, he’ll do it again. You know that.” She paused, staring at him. “John, you don’t have to take care of him. Not if it’s hurting you.”

“If he survives,” John said, “I’ll do it all over again, every time. You don’t have to come.”

Molly didn’t ask questions after that, and John hadn’t had to call her again.

There were the drugs, and there was the tattoo. Numbers, on Sherlock’s left hip, just below where the waistband of his pants usually was. He’d had gotten it while he was away, wherever he was. John had only seen it once or twice. It looked like coordinates, maybe, a series of numbers and dashes. John had asked about it, once, and Sherlock had left the house and not come back until three days later, shaking slightly and with bruises on his arms, and still wouldn’t tell him.

There were the pet snakes, too. Bored of his experiments even faster than usual, Sherlock’s interests had broadened, and he ran through test subjects at an alarming rate, making rats run mazes and giving ether to fruit flies. He’d bought the snakes for something or other, John didn’t know what, but apparently he liked them. Now they lay basking in a glass cage in the corner of the room, flicking out their tongues every once in a while and staring at John with wide, hooded eyes. Maybe Sherlock liked them because they reminded him of himself.

Worst of all, though - worse than the drugs and the disappearances and the short temper and the lying - worst of all was the cold burning in Sherlock’s eyes, something that hadn’t been there before. Those eyes were so wide and blue, so changeable and expressive, but now when John looked at them they always had the same expression, something empty but sharp.

John looked out the window at the rain, still coming down. The rain would stop, eventually.

He started up the stairs, pulling off his wet sweater as he went. Sherlock had left something on that roof when he jumped, something that he might never get back. But that was okay. John loved himself, and he loved Sherlock enough for the both of them. He could carry them both. He would.

He stopped in front of Sherlock’s door, tossing his wet sweater onto the stairs towards his own room. He knocked.

The door opened, Sherlock standing in front of him, in flannel trousers and his dressing gown. Without meaning to, John glanced at his eyes. Pupils normal size, not dilated. Not yet, at least.

“John,” said Sherlock.

“Can I come in?”

Sherlock stood back, and John walked in, over to his bed, sat down.

“Your shirt is wet,” Sherlock said, walking over to John and then stopping, his hand almost starting to reach out to him.

“Yeah, it’s been raining so much,” John said.

“It has,” said Sherlock, and then were was silence. Sherlock was standing in front of him, not moving, the pulse in the hollow of his throat jumping. He was so pale, and so thin. John thought he might be able to see the veins running blue under his skin, watch the blood racing through him, twitching and racing like his thoughts did.

“I’m not going to move out, Sherlock,” John said at last. “I couldn’t.”

“No,” said Sherlock, but John saw his shoulders move, dropping a bit. How long had they been that tense? For months now? “No one knows you like me.”

John smiled, slightly.

“And no one knows me like you,” said Sherlock, as if it was a concession. Which it was.

Sherlock loved him, John knew that. There was just nothing he could give. Or take. He could see love, he could recognize it, but he couldn’t take it. Maybe never would.

“There’s no one else, Sherlock,” said John. “Once, maybe, I could have gotten out, but now I know, I couldn’t leave this. I never could.”

Sherlock swept through the room - even in his own bedroom, he swept, he swirled, he took up as much space as possible for someone so _thin_ \- and sat next to John on the bed, John’s hair dripping onto his shoulder.

“You’re all I’ve got, John,” he said.

“We’re all we’ve got,” John amended.

Sherlock nodded. “And I don’t want to be alone.”

“I know,” said John. For the first time, he leaned towards Sherlock. Usually he let Sherlock move towards him, like a skittish horse or a scared animal, but John was cold, and tired, and Sherlock was there.

Looking up into those ice-blue eyes, John saw a flash of something, something new - finally. Fear, maybe. Concern. And then it was gone, and that calculating, flat look was back.

“Sherlock,” John sighed, and he stopped moving. He’d been close, just there, but he shouldn’t even have tried. There was nothing left for Sherlock to give. John closed his eyes, and sighed again, sinking further into the bed.

And then there was something against his lips, something warm, tentative and slow. John kept his eyes closed, and kissed back, his lips cold and still wet, wet with rainwater and maybe something else, something that was dripping down his face. Sherlock didn’t move closer, didn’t reach out for him, but he kissed him like he meant it, like he was trying to explain everything he hadn’t said since he came back. John was afraid to open his eyes, afraid to see if that sliver of ice staring back at him, still.

“John,” Sherlock said against his lips, the vibration going down John’s throat, pooling in his stomach. “John, look.”

John pulled back, and opened his eyes, reluctantly, but Sherlock wasn’t looking at him. He was pointing to the window.

“The rain’s stopped.”


End file.
